Exporting mastered songs - WAV or mp3 format?

[Greeny]

Sounds scary to a techno-flid like me, 64guitars - but I'll give it a go! 

As always, you have all the answers! 

[Ted]

I'm finding my way around the mBR great, it's just computers that I have issues with when it comes to music making - too much like being at the office!

I hear ya!  I've had Garageband for 9 months, and can't bring myself to crack it because it means more time at the computer.  But the mBR, I have time for.

What I do is master to a WAV file.  Then I import it to the computer and use LP Ripper (instead of Audacity) to trim off the leading and trailing silent bits, then I convert it to MP3.

LP Ripper is really good at one thing: splitting up WAV files into one or more MP3s.  It's intended for people who record WAVs from their LPs (hence the name) then convert the individual tracks to MP3s.  But even when you are converting one song from WAV to MP3, it's faster than Audacity, and easier to trim of head and tail.  (Less time sitting at the computer.)

LP Ripper has one other trick too:  It can add a fade-in or fade-out to the track, so I don't have to worry about doing that with the MBR during mastering.

Maybe I'll write up a how to on this, eh?

[64Guitars]

Sounds scary to a techno-flid like me, 64guitars - but I'll give it a go! 

Better hold off on that until Pedro has time to fix the MP3 Player. The old MP3 Player no longer works, and the new MP3 Player can't be manually inserted into a message - it only gets inserted automatically when you attach an MP3 file to a message. So, for now, there's no way to manually add an MP3 Player to a message, which means that offsite MP3 files cannot be played. Hopefully, that will change when Pedro finds a solution.

[Guitar-Maniac]

i too am not good at computers!
got a small question... is Wav that much better then Mp3? sound quality wise...

[64Guitars]

is Wav that much better then Mp3? sound quality wise...

Yes. The MP3 format uses lossy data compression to reduce the file size to about 1/10th of the WAV format. Lossy compression achieves this magnitude of file size reduction by throwing away some of the data, which necessarily degrades the sound quality. You should only use MP3 format when file size is important, such as when posting to the web or e-mailing, or when you want to put the song on an MP3 player. You should always keep a copy of your song for archival purposes in WAV format, as well as a full backup in BR format.

There are also several lossless forms of data compression available such as FLAC and Monkey's Audio (.ape). These formats can reduce the size of a file (though not as much as MP3) without any loss of quality.